Now that the excitement over SEGA’s E3 announcement has died down, I just wanted to make a quick mention of Hatsune Miku’s announced inclusion in the “Just Dance 2016” video game, featuring the popular cover of the classic song “Ievan Polkka” by Otomania. But with the buzz over the past two days, you probably already heard about it. That’s not why I’m posting this, however.

More than anything, the song choice made for Hatsune Miku’s cameo in Just Dance 2016 has me… Puzzled. This is my own opinion of course, but I feel they chose the absolute worst Hatsune Miku song possible for inclusion, just below World is Mine (which I only dislike due to it’s overuse and over-hype in Western marketing and media in 2011).

Ievan Polkka is one of the very first Hatsune Miku songs that came into existence, and was one of the beginning sparks that set off her explosive popularity growth. It’s also one of those polarizing songs that are loved by some Miku fans, but also disliked by some others. Particularly among Western fans, the song is admittedly an acquired taste, and may not agree well for non-Miku fans in general (which is the main demographic this song will be exposed to).

The choice of this song makes about as much sense as the inclusion of “Nyanyanyanyanyanya” in Project Diva, and that’s an actual Hatsune Miku oriented game series. Point being, there are definitely some bad song choices to make (with Ievan Polkka being up there among them), but there’s a whole lot of much better ones. Especially songs well suited for dancing. I just don’t see this being one of them.

Quoted by Alkis Argyriadis, the game’s creative director, from the video below: “This international star is the first virtual artist to open for Lady Gaga, to fill concert stadiums, to be remixed by Pharrell Williams, or even to appear on the David Letterman show”. Yet the best music example you could choose to represent these achievements was… Ievan Polkka?

If Ubisoft was hoping to lure in the Hatsune Miku fan demographic to their Just Dance game series, I’m not really sure what they were thinking. There’s one thing I can say for sure, and that’s that they didn’t catch my interest. I suppose there’s always hope for Just Dance 2017.

About jrharbortA Hatsune Miku fan since December 2007, jrharbort joined MikuFan.com as the Head Writer in October 2011, and enjoys sharing news with other fans around the world. You can follow him on Twitter at @jrharbort!